Exclusive Intimate Relationships and Marriage — Friendly Version¶
Have you ever wondered…¶
Is marriage really the happiest destination in life?
From childhood we're told: find the right person, commit, grow old together — that's happiness. But for many people, the reality looks quite different. Arguments, silent wars, jealousy, control… People exhaust themselves in marriage yet cannot say the words: "I regret this."
Lifechanyuan offers an answer to this question that shakes many people who hear it for the first time.
What Is a "One-to-One Special Relationship"?¶
In Lifechanyuan's understanding, a one-to-one special relationship is: two people mutually longing for each other, worrying about each other, depending on each other, having had sexual relations, preferring to stay close together.
Whether or not they have a legal marriage certificate, once they have formed this fixed "you belong to me and I belong to you" pattern, they are in a one-to-one relationship — which is, in reality, a marriage.
"When a man and woman live together for a prolonged period — regardless of the reason or manner — a marital relationship has de facto been established."
Why Is This Seen as a Problem?¶
Not because love itself isn't beautiful. But because of possession.
We've all felt this: once you "have" someone, you start fearing to lose them. You check their phone. You ask where they've been. You can't sit still when they come home late. That anxiety isn't love — it's the need to possess.
Xuefeng compares the marital relationship to a form of private ownership over sexual resources: just as people monopolize land, property, and wealth, marriage is the exclusive claim to a "sexual partner." And wherever there is private ownership, there is conflict — and the conflict of marriage never stops.
"Human nature is inherently selfish. Given selfishness, how can there be a truly fulfilling marital life?"
"The sweet period of marriage is only three to five years. After that, it becomes largely mutual torment."
"Not a Single Person Has Ever Made Marriage Work"¶
This sounds harsh. But consider:
- Did emperors make marriage work? No.
- Did billionaires? No.
- Did professors and celebrities? No.
- Those couples who look happy from the outside? "They have a mouthful of bitterness they cannot express."
Why? Not because people don't try hard enough — but because structural contradictions cannot be dissolved by individual effort. Wherever there is possession, there is fear. Wherever there is fear, there is control. Wherever there is control, there is suffocation.
A Practitioner's View: Carrying Someone in Your Heart Means You Can't Reach Heaven¶
For those on a spiritual path, this question goes even deeper.
"Only a mind that abides in nothing and has no obstruction can reach the Celestial realm."
If your heart is always occupied with one person — where are they? Are they happy? Do they still love me? — then your heart is forever "dwelling" in that person, and cannot be free.
"Those who wish to become a Buddha or a Celestial must step out of the one-to-one relationship… and eventually reach a state of self-sufficiency — a mind that abides in nothing."
This is not a call to stop loving people. It is an invitation for love to evolve from possession to universal radiance — like the sun, which warms everyone equally without locking its warmth inside a single dark room.
What If You're Already in a Marriage?¶
Lifechanyuan's early writings (2006–2007) also addressed people still within marriages, offering a vision of a "new era" approach to spousal life:
- Change "he/she is mine" to "this is my beloved companion on the journey of life"
- Stop treating each other as private property; become fellow travelers with shared purpose
- Give each other real space — allow privacy, allow friendship, allow independent social lives
- Love is giving, not taking; loosening your grip a little enables a longer hold
"Spouses are not tools to be used, not private property, not commodities to be bought and sold… Spouses are the union of yin and yang, life partners who lean on each other, the mountain that stands steady."
Where Is the Way Out?¶
Lifechanyuan's answer is the Second Home (Life Oasis) — a new way of living that does not rest on marriage as its foundation. There, there is no "my man" or "my woman." Everyone is free. Everyone cares for everyone else. No possession. No jealousy. No control. Only openness, happiness, freedom, and warmth.
"Life in the Second Home is at least ten times more beautiful than a married life."
Not everyone is ready for that step yet. But we can at least see clearly: the "one-to-one" relationship we were told was the destination of happiness may be precisely the chains that keep us from arriving.
Related Entries¶
Romantic Love and Sexuality · Quantum Entanglement and "the Other Half" · Family Members Are Enemies · Releasing Worldly Bonds · Self-Consistency · No Attachment, No Obstruction · The Eight-None Realm · Life Oasis · The Second Home